After I started posting Animorphs fan art this past week, I got into a discussion with several Deviants about the way the original book series ended. My stance was, I didn’t like Animorphs’ gradual slide into bleak depressing hopelessness, where nothing works out for any of the main characters and it’s heavily implied that they all die. The whole thing felt like K.A. Applegate toying with the readers’ emotions for five years just to say “See? This is why war is bad, people!” Yeah, I get that. But I prefer stories where the good guys triumph, where they overcome insurmountable odds and achieve their goals. It’s hopeful, it’s inspiring, and it’s why I love to read stories.

But entertainment at large is trending away from that, it seems. Just a few days after I had this discussion, the guys over at Cracked put out a podcast that coincidentally talked about the exact same thing: www.cracked.com/podcast/why-ou… They cited TV shows like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones, as well as movies like No Country for Old Men and the recent oeuvre of the Coen brothers. Everyone’s doing stories where every character is some kind of bastard, everyone does unspeakably terrible things, and levity is nowhere to be found. And audiences can’t get enough of it. We’re watching TV and going to the movies these days to deliberately depress ourselves.

Personally, I can’t get into that. People keep telling me “Oh, you need to watch Breaking Bad/Game of Thrones/The Walking Dead/Mad Men! It’s the greatest show on television!” And I’m thinking “Why would I want to get emotionally invested in characters who are clearly in a world where no happy ending is coming? Why would I want to sit there for an hour a week and watch these horrible human beings live out their bleak meaningless lives where nothing pleasant ever happens? This is supposed to be fun?”

I’ll give you an example. A couple of months ago, I was visiting my dad, and he showed me one of his favorite new TV shows, Banshee. I guess it’s about this guy who used to be in prison but now he’s working as a detective or something. All I remember from the one episode I saw was a family losing their home to a corrupt bank official, a 12-year-old kid who has a near-fatal asthma attack, and a flashback scene where the main character nearly gets raped by a horrifyingly strong albino man in front of a room full of about a hundred of his fellow prisoners. The last shot of the episode is the corpse of one character sunk at the bottom of a lake with a fish eating its eyeball. And I’m sitting there thinking “Holy fuck, I’m going to have to watch like six episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 back to back just to get this out of my memory.” This is what people are calling the golden age of television?

Don’t get me wrong, I like a good conflict in a story. Obviously, the characters have nowhere to go if something unfortunate doesn’t happen to them. But what’s wrong with seeing them…oh, I don’t know, win at the end? Do we really need to pile on all this extra drama, running the characters through the wringer until they’re just bitter broken shells of a human being? I mean, if everything is just DRAMA DEATH FEAR ANGST MURDER BETRAYAL ARRRRGHHH all the time with no positives at all, then what the hell’s the point in watching it if you know nothing’s ever going to get better?

An earlier Cracked podcast brought this phenomenon up as well, where they discussed Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy and wondered how well it would hold up in the future. The argument was that it wouldn’t, because it’s so dark and depressing, and future generations will likely look back on the movies and television shows of the 2000s and 2010s and wonder why we chose to entertain ourselves by not being entertained. You can keep your cancer-ridden meth doctors and your incestuous dragon princes or whatever. I’m going to be over here watching Wander Over Yonder and laughing my ass off.

Eh, it doesn't matter if the story is depressing or not. What matters is how you tell it. If you think about it, "Gone With the Wind" has a depressing ending and it's still considered a classic. Darker stories can be appealing because they explore parts of human nature that is a part of all of us (to certain degrees) and invoke different feelings in people. Entertainment isn't always about happiness, it's about exploring emotion and humanity.

And some people only like stories that invoke one type of feeling in the end, and that's fine. But some others like stories with darker themes because they can identify or appreciate the feelings and thoughts they stir in them.

And there's no way to tell how history will see the works of today. "Moby Dick" was a flop when it came out in the 19th Century, and only became popular fifty years after it came out. Time can only tell on things like the Nolan Batman movies.

Thank you so much for expressing the same words I wanted to say, but never could find the motivation to. I STRONGLY agree on this subject.

Nowadays, "oscar-worthy" entertainment is being passed off as films and TV shows that have little to no levity whatsoever, to the point where it goes from depressing to "Holocaust Depressing". It's literally the kind of bilge tank that only self-loathing, pretentious emos would love to take a dip into. This is why I found "Man of Steel" to be such a letdown for me. Even if it has that "quirky" ending with Superman at the Daily Planet as his Clark Kent persona, it still doesn't erase the fact that I had to sit through 2 hours of brooding, darkness and the "oh-so cold and cruel nature of humanity against special snowflakes".

Seriously, I would rather have a Superman that could reverse time by circling the Earth counter-clockwise and erase memories with a kiss, than a Superman who is CONSTANTLY questioning his existence, his powers, his birthright, his life, blah blah blah. I get it Nolan! The world is a harsh place, so stop shoving it down my throat and maybe we'll be good friends, 'mkay? I don't care if happy endings come off as corny or cheesy. As long as there is a shine of optimism, happiness and hope, even in the most devastated enviroment, it gets my approval.

There was a similar discussion on the Bioware boards about Mass Effect 3 BEFORE it came out (I put that there for those that try to bring up the ending fiasco). I'll never forget the discussion, because the question was asked - what kind of ending are you hoping for? I'd say 60 - 65% wanted an ending where Shepard died, because, "Disney endings aren't real" is what one person wrote.

And this went on and on about how people use games and media as an escape and don't want a grim style because the real world is already dark enough. But many argued that "that's how it should be"; that art should imitate life. There were arguments about how Shep can't win the war, but that's not the point. The point is that this is the current reality - people are tired of the "everyone lives/bad guys are defeated/hero saves the day and goes on off to the next adventure".

Do I agree with that? No; but things like Walking Dead are supposed to be like that, because of the situation going on. But that's a discussion for another time.

I do have to say though, if you're questioning why people prefer the grim, or bleak, over the optimistic, I'm probably the wrong person to talk to about this. Between last year's Pacific Rim, where mankind comes together to battle the insurmountable alien threat with robots that punch monsters to death and win, and this year's Godzilla, where man and his machines are helpless against two strange insurmountable beings and our only salvation is another creature just as ancient, mysterious, powerful and terrible, I vastly preferred Godzilla. Something about Pacific Rim's plot, setting, and especially characterization struck me as infantile when viewed away from the IMAX experience, while Godzilla felt more mature, more respectful of the audience and it's source material, and more dramatic in character and action. We can much more easily associate with Aaron-Taylor Johnson's beleaguered soldier determined in the face of unimaginable horror or Bryan Cranston as a man who has lost everything to forces he can only barely begin to understand than we can with the rather bland, one-note archetypes Guillermo Del Toro filled Pacific Rim with.

But if you ask me, to go to the root of this phenomenon, you'd have to go back to the Greeks, who filled their mythology with tragedy and loss brought about uncaring gods, where only those of the gods' blood could hope to triumph.

I totally agree. People say Game of Thrones is like Lord of the Rings, but to me Lord of the Rings is better for its hope and morals... and I love monsters but Supernatural is too dark for me - instead i'm writing a more kid-friendly, Harry POtter type of story with monsters in it where there can be victory and less random death. :/

I went to SCAD recently and took a class from Jason Maurer and he likes to deal with dark themes, but only read ones, like poverty or alzheimers. He likes documentaries but he believes fiction shouldn't be so dark since there is already so much darkness in the world. And I agree. It's out there, and it's bad, but if all we watch and create is more darkness then we're just dooming ourselves to more of it.

I do believe art reflects the environment someone is in and the dark and cynical art out there is a sign of the times. People now a days have access to so much more information and are able to see the horrible things that happen all over the world and talk to people who've had BRUTAL experiences that angst has to be channeled out somehow.

Well said, well said. I've noticed the trend in political dramas and comics. In comics, DC has been taking heat for the darker, more "adult" and serious tone of the New 52. A lot of people (myself included) don't like this at all, just because that's not to their taste, or because DC are cribbing from Frank Miller and early Image and doing it badly. In the movies, DC aren't trying to copy Marvel (well, they're doing it structurally and going at it ass-backward) but are instead copying the one cinematic success they have had over the past decade--the Dark Knight trilogy--without asking whether or not it fits the characters the movies are about. This works with Batman; not so well with Superman or Wonder Woman or (God help us when that comes out) Shazam. But a small group of fans keeps buying their books and the movies do make money, so DC keep plugging ahead, head rammed resolutely in arse...

We'll see. Maybe it'll fit with the Nolan/Snyder aesthetic (although given the history of the character, they'll have to do it with a crowbar); maybe it'll be a light action flick that you don't feel horrible taking your kids to see. That's in the future. I do hope it'll have Mr. Talky Tawny, though.

At least Blackadder had levity. At least in the Thieves' World novels characters could succeed at something. No matter how badly the battlefield is stacked against them, in David Weber novels like Dahak Series, characters could survive by being smart and sneaky. At least in earlier-era 70's/80's grim stories the characters would at least be fighting for justice. The Fall Guy. Robotech 1, 2 and 3. Alien Nation. Earth Final Conflict. Bad things always happen, but there's at least a payoff for the survivors. Breaking Bad is the drug culture's Babylon 5, and no-one should begrudge them it, but I'll stick with the B5, thanks.

You know, you bring up some interesting points. I feel the need to elaborate further on the subject, but I would rather think about it for a while before I state my case. I may get back to this soon.

Also, I like the idea behind the Animorphs ending/decline into dark territory. When a series gradually goes into that subject matter it can really work in it's favor. However, drastic and sudden tone shifts can completely ruin a story. I've never read Animorphs, so I can't say anything about the books themselves, but I can still comment on what you brought up considering the story.

Game of Thrones is something that I'm torn on. Not necessarily the tone, but the tangled hydra that is the story(ies). The show cannot have a satisfying ending because there are too many sub-plots going on and the story has grown too complex and untamed. The only way that it could end is either abruptly with no questions answered, everyone dies, or some story-lines get conclusions while the rest are left hanging. Either way, plot holes are bound to fallow. Still, I find it an interesting watch with some really great characters.

This is why I prefer comedy than drama. I had the same problem with the Ben 10 episode 'Kevin 11'. The fact that the episode started with Ben getting into trouble and has a heated argument with Grandpa Max didn't help things. I have a real problem with it if the show is meant to be a comedy.

The thrilling thing about watching Breaking Bad is watching a nobody failed loser using his wits to outsmart vicious criminals and rise in power like a badass by capping off some motherfuckers like a boss, that's actually uplifitng to some people, same things goes to Tyrion Lannister as a dwarf uses his intelligence and badassness to combat more height advantaged showing that anyone

My favorite kind of movies, comics, and tv shows is that it's combine sadness with laughter as Walt Disney puts it

Also Wander Over Yonder is a let down for me, I wish Wander would get his ass smacked, I can't stand ignorant oblivious characters that gets everything he or she wants without even trying or actually being aware of any conflict, that's not funny to me that just piss me off (that's why some of the least liked characters of Animainiacs are the friggen Hippos and Mindy. I was hoping for Wander to be a smart cool Bugs Bunny esque character outwitting his opponents. Please don't let that mean that I dislike optimistic characters, one of favorite cartoons right now is Clarence (Skyler Page involvment was overhyped still waiting for next season)

I watch, listen, read, dark stuff to fun stuff

From My Little Pony to Young JusticeFrom Star Trek to Breaking BadFrom Watchmen to BoneFrom Megadeth to Motley CrueFrom Kung Fu Panda to Fight ClubFrom BioShock to Team Fortress 2

You should try broadening your horizons otherwise your viewpoint on art is incredibly limited and counter-productive

I like WanderOY. He'd go to Holland just to try the dutch chocolate. He's not there for long tours or trips to multiple art galleries. He's just the outer-space version of a guy who went there to eat chocolate and look at a few strange buildings. Then he leaves, chased by local police for numerous parking violations. WOY isn't stupid, it's just cuter then it is smart, and the ep' is over too soon for it to get around to being high-brow.

1940-1966 Patriotic feel good movies the best years of Frank Carpa and John Wayne1967-1974 Downbeat Crime dramas the best years of Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorsese1975-1991 The start of Blockbusters the best years of Steven Speilberg and Arnold Schwartznegger1992-2000 The rise of edgy indie films the best years Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith2001-2007 The return of Joseph Campbell franchises and the boom of CGI the best years of Pixar and LoTR2008-Present Nolan films and knockoffs

The Dark Knight franchise will still be remembered almost as fondly as Taxi Driver and The French Connection as those badass dark mature films. Fuck some of your favorite music was made as a retaliation to 80s Hair Metal, artists just has to push on forward, otherwise we would still be watching hokey serial films, do you just want to watch Adam West batman over and over, I don't even like 80s Fred Wolf Turtles, yet the Ninja Turtles 2003 and Mirage Comics I consider to great.

Aren't you just limiting art itself

Also we got friggen Marvel movies and crappy Michael Bay movies where good guys win all the time

I might've seen this coming. In sixth grade my school published a book containing stories all the students had written. In sixth grade, not only does adolescence hit you like a ton of bricks and open you up to the atrocities of the world, but the 90's were well under way and pessimism and cynicism were in vogue. 90% of those stories were dark, depressing tales of horror that usually ended with the death of the main character. (My mother called the school to complain.)

Naturally, these people grew up, inherited society and made the kind of TV they wanted to watch.

There is sort of a logic to making everything horrible, that it makes for a much more gripping and less predictable story if the people you're following can be cut down at any time. Game of Thrones wouldn't be nearly as popular (or as good) if the outcomes were predictable in any way. The big question in that story isn't "will X character survive," it's "who will gain control of Westeros in the end." It works differently than other shows with a permanent cast.

I think the whole idea is starting to wear thin, though. About eleven new cable TV shows with tortured antiheroes debuted this summer and they're starting to run together into a bland sameness. If grimdark TV can be compared to grimdark comics, we're in holofoil cover territory now.

For some reason its all the rage these days to watch shows like that. It healthy to break the mold of happy games and shows with sad endings but for some reason its becoming very prevalent in the 2010s in shows, movies, books and video games where they want to make shows where every character is an asshole. Its gotten to the point where its dull. Maybe its popular because of all the shit that's been happening here and around the world.

There are no happy endings in real life, that's why I like to watch shows and games where characters prevail against all odds, no matter how depressing things get, even though they won't in real life. Like in Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, the show gets very grim dark at certain points, and you think they're not going to complete their goal, but then it gets the most happiest ending of any anime show I've seen.

I cannot and never will watch any of the shows you mentioned, because I don't like to watch characters getting raped and tortured etc.

You and me, and anyone else that has the same views as you wrote in this journal, are relics of the 90s, like screaming against a giant wave of popular opinion.

And this is why the current Ms. Marvel comic book has my attention... because it so far avoids all the constant negativity that Marvel and DC throws in for years on end. Seriously, TV, comics, movies, books... it's no fun anymore. I just want to watch/read something I can smile about.

It's in the comic books, too. Everyone's bitching about DC's Grimdark, and Marvel isn't much better. Sometimes I'm in the mood for a good gore fest with no happy ending, but other times I want Sailor Moon's happy ending with magic and glitter, or just pop in Office Space and watch the Grimdark fall apart to a carefree attitude type ending, with the joke about the salt on the glass XDD I'm writing a story (original) with a lot of grim things going on, but the characters pull through with their own brand of comedy, usually at each other's expense. Some chapters are going to end on really serious painful moments, but it's never going to even reach half of the more positive endings. Hell, cliffhangers are better than constant grimdark endings. I couldn't live with myself if I made constant misery for these characters who I regard as my children. I adore them, I want to see them happy, and even though I've barely started efforts to script the openning scenes, I have the ending in mind, and it's a pretty damn happy one.

I don't understand why people would push these characters we're supposed to love into constant misery... except it makes the company money. Yay for them, but what about quality entertainment?

DC problem is NOT because it's dark, it's because it's IMMATURELY acts "mature" by adding boobs and gore with no sense of uncomfortable maturity but immature pandering with a lack sense of consequences and complexities, mature comics are NOT Frank Miller and Rob Lienfeld comics, those are what a 13 year boy thinks is what mature.

Actually, the dark is definitely part of the problem. Making things dark so much of the time is drastic overkill. I love dark, but overkill is just bad storytelling, not to mention overly depressing. But exclude the depressing part, it's just bad storytelling. Downright shitty, even. Everything else is just more problems. This subject was focusing on the grimdark part, not the other problems with the big two, otherwise I'd have mentioned them. Sexist shit is another big problem with DC, etc. It's not just throwing sexual stuff in there, it's actually giving the direct impression that women are sex tools and the only time they are "allowed" to kick ass is when it's for male entertainment and they have to do it "sexy." That they're nothing but sex tools or other disposable uses for men. Go watch "Son of Batman", that new cartoon. Aside from shitty storytelling, it's a lovely example of sexist bullshit.

You're right about the other problems with DC, but grimdark definitely IS a big problem alongside them. Take out all the sexist bullshit, and you still got poor story quality because of grimdark overkill.

It's not just a Hollywood thing. In Japan, the latest incarnation of the long-running Kamen Rider franchise (you might be aware of it's utter butchering by America known as "Masked Rider") Kamen Rider Gaim, is being penned by Gen Urobochi, famous for the Magical Girl deconstruction work Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and who now takes that same eye to Kamen Rider. Over the course of the series, the various Riders have clashed due to their varying levels of selfish motivation for becoming Riders, and one character in particular has grown more and more unhinged, effectively supplanting the usual rubber-suit monsters as the main villain. The franchise has gone grimdark in the past in installments such as Kamen Rider 555, Kamen Rider Ryuki (which was the inspiration for Madoka, btw) and most infamously, Shin Kamen Rider Prologue, which combined a script with a David S. Goyer-esque level of tragedy and hopelessness with Guyver-esque body horror and violence.

I realize that this may seem like just a lot of words to you, someone who is decidedly not an Otaku, but I thought I'd offer my perspective on this.

I don't know if I'm prepared to call Gaim full-on grimdark. It's darker than a lot of recent Riders to be sure, but while things have gotten pretty bleak, it started out in happier times so we had time to get invested in the characters. Kouta is still a genuinely good person, unlike the protagonists Jesse is talking about. You want to see Kouta win because he is a genuinely good person. Characters like Kamen Rider Bravo are still there to provide comic relief. The show's dark-to-fun ratio might be a little high compared to W or OOO, but they made it a point to earn it. Gaim's like a Harry Potter level of dark, not a Dark Knight level of dark.

Yeah, it's still a lot lighter than the things we see dominating discussion of American Telly, but we've still got about ten shows to go, so let's not get too comfy yet. Even so, Micchy's arc is probably one of the darkest we've seen a Rider go in a LONG time, I think the last time a Rider went that down was Kusaka/Kamen Rider Kaixa, although Micchy's a much more defined character than Kusaka was.

Not to go against anything you've said about the bleakness of the way movies and just entertainment seems to be going, but only Rachel died. We don't know much about the alien that took over Ax's body but it was supposed to be the whole get the team back to fight off the new evil who has info on bringing back a fallen friend. If there was more after that I never read I apologize, but that's how I took it.

"Ram the Blade ship" would seem to imply that they're all about to kill themselves in a fiery explosion just to stop this thing. And even if they don't die, Jake is still a broken shell with no humanity left, Marco is a colossal douchebag, and Tobias is angstier than ever. This is not how I wanted to see these characters end up.

See, I guess writers who do this sort of thing think that they're making their story more "realistic" by piling on the drama to insurmountable levels. But that's not realism. That's just torturing your characters nonstop because you don't think you can be taken seriously as an artist otherwise. If anything, it just takes me out of the story even more. There's no need to turn the characters' lives into endless parades of misery. There's nothing genuine about that. Nobody's life sucks that badly.

Ok, I can understand that, not how I took it, but I can still see how it would be bleak. I was thinking more of a 'ram in' then board the ship kinda thing. But that's what happens when you build up a series with no real plan for ending it, then ending it on a weird cliffhanger.

But I digress, I understand where you are coming from, too much dark, bleak, depressing stories with not enough good resolutions.

Entertainment has gone through these little fads before and, thankfully, come back out of them. I'm a little concerned about this recent one, however. We've let our culture become so paranoid and politically correct that any kind of lighthearted fun immediately offends someone out there and God forbid we let even the most hypersensitive bozo get upset. So, instead, we make shows that remind us of how much everything sucks because that's dignified and grown-up and clearly nobody can be offended by that, right?